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rollercoasterwords · 1 year

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your fanfic doesn't need to be Content

ok so thanks to this lovely anonymous message i've been motivated to organize my thoughts on the increasingly common phenomenon of fanfic writers treating their own fics like Content for consumption, the way an influencer on social media might (all of this is in the context of the marauders fandom specifically -- no idea how or whether it might apply elsewhere)

what i mean by that is, essentially, instances of fanfic writers playing into the idea that fanfiction is a product created for the consumption of readers (and thereby the idea that fandom is a community that can be clearly divided between "producers"/writers and "consumers"/readers).

some examples i've seen: people "advertising" their fics on platforms like tiktok, sometimes even before they've started writing said fic ("hey guys i'm going to start writing a fic with x y z who's interested??"), or making posts asking outright "if i wrote a fic with x y z would people read it??" i've also seen people share concerns that if they write a certain thing they want to write (i.e, heavy smut, heavy angst, etc) then it will make their fic less "accessible" to a broader audience ("i want everyone to be able to enjoy my fics!")

another recent example that comes to mind is the "jegulus strike." while i'm sure it was largely well-intentioned, a strike is a form of protest tied inextricably to a consumer economy, and positioning writers as laborers who are standing in opposition to readers demanding that labor reinforces the framework of a consumer economy in which fanfiction is a product for consumption.

something i want to make clear here--i'm not saying that any of these behaviors are like....Moral Failings deserving of Ridicule. i think we are all very much conditioned by late-stage capitalism + algorithmic social media to view everything, even our hobbies, within the framework of a consumer economy. this is just me observing some of the ways i see that mindset creeping into fandom spaces.

like. i think there's this unspoken assumption that art is only worthwhile if it has an audience; that creative pursuits only matter if you can profit from them. if people are applying this mindset to fanfiction, then it makes sense to see this impulse to advertise fics the way authors advertise their books on tiktok, or twitter, or whatever. it makes sense for writers to become preoccupied with audience perception, perhaps changing their stories to make them more palatable for a certain audience or even going into the writing process with the audience already in mind--an overhanging and ever-present anxiety, asking yourself "how will this be received?"

the problem is that fanfiction doesn't fit into this model. it has always been meant for a niche audience, never the mainstream, and it has always existed outside the profit economy. trying to turn fanfiction into broadly consumable content is antithetical to the medium itself, and, in all likelihood, will fail. the vast majority of fanfiction is never going to be read by hundreds of thousands of people. if you go into writing it with an audience as your end goal, you will likely be disappointed.

what makes fanfiction so wonderful and unique is that it is meant to be written, first and foremost, for the writer. fanfiction as a medium grew out of personal joy in creation, out of individuals who thought "I want to see this story for myself" and then wrote it. because fanfiction is specific, catered to individual tastes and niche audiences, it lends itself to a unique sort of community in which your work attracts other people with that same niche taste, making it easier to strike up a conversation or start a friendship by saying, "hey, i love this story you wrote for yourself! it just so happens to be the exact sort of thing i wanted to read."

so i guess at the end of the day, my question for other fic writers is: if nobody was ever going to read this, would you still want to write it?

and if the answer is no...i think that's something that calls for reflection! where is your motivation rooted? is it rooted in a desire to create, in the joy of creation? or is it rooted in a desire to be seen, to be validated? wanting to be seen and validated is entirely natural, and it is by no means a bad thing. oftentimes, both these impulses--creation and validation--will be part of the decision to write + post a fic. but if validation is your primary motivation, and if you have internalized the idea that validation means getting as many people as possible to look at the thing you're making and click a heart button, then you will probably end up disappointed. you will probably end up feeling like your writing isn't good enough, no matter how many people end up reading it--because no audience will ever be big enough to validate you if you aren't able to take pride in your creation independent of any metrics of consumption.

i'm not saying that you should never share your fics on social media. like i mentioned above, community is one of the best parts of fanfiction--but are you posting in search of community? or are you posting in search of an audience? i know the line can get blurry sometimes, but i do think those two things look different, and i do think it is productive to look inwards and ask what you are truly seeking when you throw your writing into the void of social media posts. and i think as writers it's important not to fall into the trap of acting like our fics are a product intended for audience consumption, because to do so contributes to the deterioration of a fandom culture that is separate from the profit economy. plus, i just think all of us would be happier if we started trying to actively unlearn the idea that art is only worthwhile if it manages to amass a huge audience.

#art is worthwhile because it's art!!!#creations matter because the act of creation holds value!!!#anyway. this is something ive spent a lot of time reflecting on personally #and i think it's a good thing for anyone writing fanfiction to reflect on!!#like it's completely valid to want people to read ur writing #but if that is the DRIVING FORCE behind why ur writing....it probably won't be sustainable in the long run #ranting and raving

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bombcollar · 1 month

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I was tagged by @go-go-devil!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I currently have 151.

2. What is your AO3 wordcount?

327,526

3. What fandoms do you write for?

Currently the most recent fics I wrote have been for Cadence of Hyrule but I've also recently written for Iconoclasts and Pokemon.

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

The Ferris Wheel (Bugsnax, Snorplo) - 248

Gemini (Bugsnax, body horror) - 169

Imitation Beef (Bugsnax, continuation of a canon scene) - 165

Imago (Elden Ring, Miquella wakes up as a big bug) - 154

Field Notes (Bugsnax, AU, cosmic horror) - 148

5. Do you respond to comments?

I always try to, even if it's just to say thanks.

6. What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

oh god probably one of my bugsnax fics... bugsnax really was ripe for angst. Both One Last Dance and Weary end in the implication that everybody has succumbed to the snax. I tend to leave things on more ambiguous notes than angsty, so even if the characters are in a sad or desperate situation it's uncertain what's going to happen to them next.

7. What is the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Sleep is Dark Souls III fic that implies the age of dark is actually a good thing and Lorian and Lothric survive to see it after all they've been through. I know I have written other happy things but this one is very hopeful.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

I've gotten a couple shitty comments or ones where I was just like, I have no idea what you're trying to communicate to me, but they're extremely rare and I just delete them if I do get them.

9. Do you write smut? If so, which kind?

I do not write smut. Just not my thing.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest crossover you’ve ever written?

Not often, I have a few Fromsoft crossovers but I did write a Bugsnax/Nier Automata fic that never got finished. That's Between My Teeth.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of!

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, quite a few. Ao3 user Dashana in particular has translated a number of my Iconoclasts fics to Russian. I will probably never say no to having a fic translated if it helps it reach a larger audience, especially because I tend to pick niche fandoms or subjects.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have, with @malicious-fisheeves and with @wheeled-jack as well as some other friends who don't really use tumblr.

14. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

I really don't feel that strongly about ships much of the time but I do really like Wally/May from Pokemon RSE/ORAS and Gwyndolin/Darkmoon Knightess from Dark Souls.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

Ugh I have this Mochi Mayhem rewrite thing in the works but I just can't seem to make any progress on it. I may put it out there unfinished but the problem is I have a big chunk of the beginning done and then a scene at the very end and nothing in the middle lmao.

16. What are your writing strengths?

I've been told I'm really good at building dread. I personally think I'm good at writing platonic and familial character relationships, and writing characters who might be antagonists but who are complex and sympathetic.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have some trouble when it comes to writing incidental side characters that might serve a purpose for one scene but aren't really that important.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic?

I really enjoy writing dialogue, it's one of my favorite parts of the process.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

I wrote a Rayman 3 fic about some OCs of mine probably back in 2003 or something. It was about these griffin-like creatures that had the powerups tested on them and it fucked them up because they were flesh and blood rather than made of cloth like the Hoodlum enemies are. They were trying to escape the facility they were kept in. Unfortunately I do not think it's still posted on my old ff.net account so it may be lost media.

20. Favorite fic you’ve written?

I'll always be extremely proud of Monarch Sunrise (the bugsnax timeskip cruise fic) for the sheer scale of it (as far as my fics go) and for all the help I had plotting and editing it.

This is a tough question to answer though because I'm really happy with many of them. I'd say my favorite thing I've written lately is Lyre Lyre, my Octavo backstory fic, because I think it does a good job of laying out his situation in a concise and entertaining manner, like he's telling this story to a crowd.

as for tagging folks uhhh how about @wheeled-jack @mumagi @disco-descent

#ask games

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psychewritesbs · 4 months

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What do you think that made Jujutsu Kaisen different from any other shounen? Also, why do you think that most people said it's overated? I don't mean anything negative, just want to know your opinions on this. Thanks to you I started JJK manga and anime, and I love it (sorry as a new fan, at first I hesitate because of the negative stigmas that I found on fandom about this series).....

Also, why do you think that Gojo is a popular character?

First of all... I'm SORRY! I've literally been writing an answer to you for like for ever and ever 😭

It's just that I've been thinking long and hard about your ask because how do I objectively gush about what makes jjk amazing, when all sense of objectivity and normalcy walked out the door in 2020?

So I'll start by saying FUCKYES I don't know what fandom you found me through, but I LOVE hearing that you decided to give jjk a shot despite what other people might say about it. Most especially if you found that you love it.

I think that, for all of its flaws, jjk is still a wonderful story exploring deep truths about the human condition.

So I'm going to glaze on jjk like there's no tomorrow under the cut'o!

Glaaaaaaaaze....

Regarding the idea that most people think it's overrated: It's really simple... jjk is a very multilayered niche story.

By multilayered I mean that everything from a meathead battle shonen fan, to a brainiac "intellectual" who doesn't care for the battles that much, and everyone in between, will find something that they can enjoy in jjk.

✅ Canon/headcanon romance ✅ Battles ✅ Existentialism ✅ Amazing characters ✅ Spirituality and esoteric concepts ✅ Power scaling

The problem is that jjk is so mainstream because of this mass appeal, that it could never live up to everyone's expectations, nor it should. That is not to mention that the more popular it becomes, the more people who are simply not going to like jjk it will reach.

In the end, jjk is at its core a niche story published in a shonen magazine, catering to a very specific audience.

To me, for every person saying jjk is overrated, there's 9 people who love it. And maybe I can't back up my totally made up statistic with facts, but jjk wouldn't have 90 million copies in circulation if most people thought it is overrated--they just happen to be the loudest and I can't wait for them to stfu lol.

🤪...

So that's really it. jjk is so popular that it has gotten the attention of people who aren't going to like it for whatever reason they might have. Sometimes it's simply personal taste, and sometimes it's them missing the point. These are the people calling jjk overrated.

How do I know? Because when I heard all of the hype surrounding csm and how it was the second coming of manga Christ, I decided to read it and found it to be incredibly overrated. That doesn't make csm objectively bad, btw, it just mean I personally don't care for Fujimoto's writing or art.

What makes jjk different from other shonen?

What I want to say is that I'm wondering if there is an objective measure for what makes jjk different. I think the obvious answer is that jjk has successfully subverted tropes time and time again. But I think it actually goes much deeper than that.

I am not sure that I speak for everyone. But... like would I be me if I didn't turn this answer into an exploration of depth? It's just that for those of us who feel jjk in our bones and don't see it as yet another basic shonen story... I feel like jjk speaks deeply to our humanity.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, stories are carriers of subjective truth and experience. And jjk is moving and shaking the collective psyche because of what it's saying about our shared humanity.

The basic shonen recipe

(source)

The thing is that I started watching Jujutsu Kaisen because I had an expectation that a shonen story had a good chance of catching my attention.

I've seen a lot of anime, and a lot shonen anime to be more specific. So I went in assuming jjk would follow a specific recipe.

Light haired, yang/Sun archetype, happy go lucky with a single-minded determination to achieve something shonen mc who goes on a hero's journey, learns about himself, and powers up as a result of his journey...

Bonus points if he has a demon inside of him and joins a tight knit 3-man squad made up by dynamic personalities that is mentored by the strongest teacher.

That said, it is the way Gege has explored every single one of these tropes that has made jjk unique in my eyes. I particularly love that there is a certain intentionality to how jjk's characters express typical shonen character traits outside of the way the recipe is usually followed...

The result is the same... but the means and the journey in jjk are explored through an existential and psychological lens that is very grounded in our humanity (aka relatable).

I think more than being a battle shonen, jjk is an exploration of the sense of self first and foremost.

In that sense, jjk is an exploration on how the sense of self is shaped. Like the panel above setting the stage for one of the main themes in jjk: how facing the existential fear of death shapes the sense of self.

So to me jjk is intentional about asking deep questions about life, and telling stories about characters who ask the same questions and how they go about finding answers.

As such, jjk asks that we question the very foundation of our identity as we come face to face with how our expectations haven't matched up to the reality of the world around us...

Similarly, jjk asks that we consider the difference between choosing a life worth living true to what truly matters to us...

...and realizing a little bit too late that what we thought mattered was not as important...

jjk is saying there are consequences to your actions and face them you must even if it all feels bleak...

And to me, that's because Gege understands people on a very deep level. To the point that if you're a jjk fan and you feel moved by any of its characters, they move you deeply.

A lot of this is in the subtext, of course, so not everyone can understand these themes on an intellectual level, nor do they care for. And it doesn't matter if they do or not because jjk still shakes and moves so many people to the point that you have people who make a sport out of hating on it and spend hours complaining about it... like who has that much energy to focus on something they don't like 😭?

Anyway... if I had to say one thing that makes jjk unique, it is how it story tells--which is ironically the main complaint people have about it. Again... it's a niche story that has mass appeal.

I love Gege's writing because to me it isn't about his technical skill, but his vision and the topics he explores. As someone who's been consuming animanga for 25+ years, an author with a unique writing style and an interesting premise doesn't come often. Gege is that author for me.

Anyways... Gege probably didn't even think of any of that...

jjk is just another battle shonen.

About why people love Gojo

Honestly? I'm the wrong person to ask 😂. I haven't a clue. Maybe because he's a cute bishoen? And also the strongest?

No clue lol. Anyone want to chime in with why they love Gojo?

But I fully agree with this and saved it just for you lol 👇🏼

(source)

Thanks for dropping by anon! :)

#ask the mental gymnastics anime girl #god i love jujutsu kaisen

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skinnytuna · 11 months

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(i'm anon who replied to your long post about audience validation and art)

thank you for your response, it's very interesting. it's actually kinda funny because I used to be a person who never, ever shared anything I did with other people (online or in person). I wouldn't talk about the media I enjoyed or showed the drawings I made. it always felt too intimate - I was only doing it for myself and so having other people's eyes on it wouldn't add anything to my enjoyment apart from shame from not liking or creating the 'perfect' thing. if I imagined what I would do in the future, it was only from the perspective of what I would actually create, rather than the validation it would give me.

and then my world view flipped, I guess as I became increasingly exposed to online validation. I still dont share anything I make but if I (indulgently) daydream about creating something, it is rarely purely the process of creation that I think about. I cant separate the stuff I do and the response I would get like I could as a kid. this is probably partly because of watching numbers rise online. but maybe it could also just be the sad reality of transitioning into adulthood? when you are young the stuff you make is never going to get you shit. but when you are older, you are expected to view the world with a transactional slant: whatever you give, you must get back in return.

idk how into fandoms you are but I love them because they are a way to remove that dependence on transaction (both monetary and inter-personal validation) we have. obviously, fandoms mostly exist in an online world and so some people are going to be more successful at creating than others (and some people might even manage to make a tiny amount of money) but mostly they are pretty equal. most artists (fic writers/fan artists) are only creating for the sake of creation. they like something, want to improve it or want to explore a world and so they create. some fanfic writers will never get past 100 kudos on a single work, but they still write thousands and thousands of more words. this is because, for them, writing is a hobby and a way to have fun. they are literally unable to monetise it, and the possible size of a response is often limited by the tiny size of a niche fandom.

fan fiction is wholly and unapologetically amateur. it can be a great quality, but writers have the freedom to create imperfect things and learn as they go. there are no critics, book sales or best seller lists - you can just make shit and put it out there if you want.

idk if any of that made sense but yeah

it's funny you say that about adulthood because there are so many like. 13 year old rappers now who are solely in it for the money or dont understand why they are doing it and their parents are encouraging them to do it for the money so like. childhood for us was very different to what childhood currently is, right now this year.

but i personally cant remember a time when i wasn't desperate for validation like when i was playing guitar when i was 8 or 10 i still had that "i hope im good enough i want to be good enough without trying" feeling it's just the people i wanted to impress were like, authority figures. i wanted my guitar teacher to think i was cool. i wanted my moms friends to think i was funny. i'm still afraid of doing anything i haven't already learned how to do, writing is the first New thing i've attempted in maybe my entire adulthood.

it's kind of funny, when i was younger i didn't realize how bad i was at writing music and that's the only reason i stuck to it long enough to learn anything. i was like laughably bad at it in high school and no one really went out of there way to grab me by the shoulders and say "hey! you suck at this! stop!" though a bunch of people did tell me it kinda sucked. i mostly just thought they were wrong. they weren't. but now part of me doesn't believe i could ever be any good at something that isn't that. like when i write fiction i know on a cognitive level if it ends up being good it's not because i worked hard or earned it or anything it's just a complete fluke. and i don't even really believe people when they tell me it's good. even though obviously i'm only posting it so people will tell me it's good.

in a way i feel like i'm sort of shifting back to the way i was in high school... every piece of art i make im like "this is the best shit ever" and then i post it and if people tell me it sucks im like "lol. incorrect. your tastes are Unrefined" and then i keep making more whatever crap whatever. which honestly is the best way to live i think. i have some people in my life who really like, respect and admire that i make whatever the fuck i want without ever really considering whether or not i should. which is funny because i have a lot of people in my life who are like, Normal artists, who Think before they make something, and try to make Good Things and i envy them greatly because it really comes through in the work.

though obviously as an evil bastard communist i am a strong believer that "Bad" Art Is Radical and "Good" Art is Bourgeois Idealism and i find myself constantly torn between, the allure of timesinks and iteration and the mystique of hyperprolific stream of consciousness artists and i feel like i'm the worst of both worlds by not being fully one way or the other! but i guess not everyone can be Lil B and not everyone can be Frank Ocean and some of us need to sit in between those two extremes...

look at all this me talking about how i never stop and think about the art while i'm stopping and thinking about the art... i'm an Olympic level liar rn.

i've never read a fanfiction in my life (outside of like.. homestuck smut when i was fifteen. which i guess Technically Counts.) but as the form is widely derided i'm sure it has the most artistic merit of any thing. i think a lot about what a world would be like where money and art are completely unrelated. and all art exists completely separate from how much dollars it can make a corporation. would being popular even matter? would people still seek fame... complicated questions. Way if we pees form butts

#you better tell me who you are anon we better become friends

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jurijurijurious · 4 months

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Tagged by @period-dramallama - thank you!

1. How many works do you have on AO3?:

Seven. Not enough.

(Guys there's no number 2 in this thing, where did it go??)

3. What fandoms do you write for?

At present, ReBoot and sometimes I drop back into Elizabeth (1998). I was much more of a fanfic slut in my youth, multiple fandoms on the go. (I've done Power Rangers, Doctor Who, Star Wars, Disney's Hercules...)

4. What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

Dodge and Burn (ReBoot)

Road to Ruin (ReBoot)

Mea Culpa (Elizabeth 1998)

Inconcessus fructus (Elizabeth 1998)

Dodge and Burn: Chapter 11.5 - Optional Add-on (ReBoot)

5. Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes. It's something I've always done. I think it stems from the early days of Fanfic.net and Live Journal where many people were more generous with their time and left lots of comments and engaged in discourse, whereas now I get very little feedback. I enjoy thanking people or answering questions, it makes the work put into a fic feel worthwhile that it's created some kind of engagement. I think society now is more geared to comsuming but not reflecting which is a shame.

6. What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

I'm hoping "Dodge and Burn" will fill that gap. I'm not sure Mea Culpa or Incon' were angsty? They had angst but I think the ending tied up ok.

7. What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

What's a happy ending? I don't think I've written a happy ending for years. Maybe back in my Doctor Who days.

8. Do you get hate on fics?

Not any more. I wrote a Star Wars fic a good 20 years ago which to be fair was terrible and featured lots of unnecessarily cruel tropes but it got a lot of love at the time, until quite some years after, someone randomly began reviewing every chapter and bombing it. I don't know why they kept wasting their time on something they really didn't like, I guess people enjoy dumping on others. I just turned off the notifications, it was wirtten too long ago for me to care. I've grown since then. I don't get hate any more really, my fics are super niche rarepairs in minority fandoms, I don't get many readers. You're either into it or you've never heard of it.

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Yes. It's pretty tame overall, I try to focus on emotion rather than action. I seem to enjoy writing some sub/dom elements - not proper BDSM but there's certainly power play in my smut. It's a battlefield more than a bedroom.

10. Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written?

I've touched on crossovers but they're such hard work and really only appeal to me rather than a wider audience as I fix on really weird-ass combinations. I've never finished a crossover fic. I started a Lion King/Discworld one many years ago. Recently I had fun with Elizabeth (1998)/Attack on Titan. I wrote some snippets and am determined it could work if I put my mind to it but yeah, way too niche.

11. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I doubt it. I have this low key - not fear, perhaps curiosity - that things I wrote years ago might have been repackaged and recirculated and I'd have no idea because I've lost touch with so any fandoms.

12. Have you ever had a fic translated?

No.

13. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. I'm too much of a control freak to want to share a fic.

14. What’s your all-time favourite ship?

I can't choose one. I love, love, love Elizabeth/Walsingham (Walsibeth) from the Elizabeth movie as it just means so much to me, and it's been with me a long time. And I feel like it's almost exclusively mine, I've read very few other fics of that pairing before I started writing it in the mid 2000s.

Megabyte and Dot from ReBoot are my current obsession and again that pairing is something I've liked for a long time. They're so much fun to write, at constant battle with each other. I think I'm better at writing them now that I'm older as I can tap into life experience and not just ride on my youthful hormones.

15. What’s a WIP you want to finish, but doubt you ever will?

I rarely finish anything tbh. I will say Dodge and Burn, i desperately want to finish it but my legacy does not bode well for it.

16. What are your writing strengths?

Sexual tension I think? Maybe.

17. What are your writing weaknesses?

I have been overly descriptive in the past and spoon fed the reader with the character's thoughts and motivations. I'm trying to peel back from that and show rather than tell. There will definitely be other weaknesses. I feel like I focus too much on dialogue but I love writing dialogue. I hate writing battles or heavy action scenes, I need to focus on building my skills in that area.

18. Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language for a fic?

I'm not a linguist so I wouldn't dare.

19. First fandom you wrote for?

If we're talking pre-internet childhood, maybe Power Rangers?

20. Favourite fic you’ve ever written?

I do love Dodge and Burn which I'm currently working on, it's a lot of fun, but I remain proud of Inconcessus fructus that I wrote in the mid-2000s, I actually think it's one of my best pieces of writing and I fear I peaked back then.

Tagging @buginateacup @thisbluespirit @thatfilthyanimal if you fancy.

#fanfic ask #fanfic #writing #megadot #elizabeth 1998 #walsibeth #reboot fanfic #reboot: dodge and burn #megabyte x dot

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not-poignant · 10 months

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10, 12, 16!

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Hmm.

Yes. A piece of writing has haunted me. Usually non-fiction books about the state of the environment re: climate change, they often stay with me for a long time.

Some fiction books infect me like a virus for a while, and I become really obsessed with them. They're not always the stories I write fanfiction for. I don't know if that's the same as being 'haunted' by something. To be haunted by something implies something that causes mental anguish or torment.

OH. Yes, actually, there was one m/m series that got published that was so much gratuitous torture porn and I kept hanging out for the comfort part of the increasingly insane levels of hurt, because hurt/comfort was one of its tags. It had like 20 installments (it's a published series) and it had no comfort, and a thrown together hasty ending that felt like slapping a bandaid on a person that had been exploded into pieces.

The process of reading that and getting NO good ending really, causes me some anguish to think about to this day. In that sense, I would say yes, I'm haunted by it. I'm not going to name the series if anyone asks, it was such a clear case of 'I'm being triggered and should have pulled out much earlier.' Though I am really mad that anyone dared to call that a hurt/comfort story lmao.

My own writing doesn't haunt me, thank god.

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

Hmmm, three writing wishes. Hmmmmmm.

I wish for my writing to find more of the readers who will love it and enjoy it, and that some of those readers will continue to have the kind of income that allows them to support a writer once a month via Patreon, so that I can hopefully keep symbiotically giving them the kind of writing they want

2. I wish I could do editing just by blinking at a story.

3. I wish I had the energy / ability to help other people publish their own stories for niche audiences in ways that they enjoy. One of the things I actually find kind of frustrating is that this job forces me to live on the absolute edges of my energy levels and that I've always wanted to be able to help others out with writing and I'm very limited in how I could do that. If I wasn't, I would've 100% published like a Fae Tales short story anthology by now, and art books, with royalties going to the authors and artists, for example. And like, when I die - which will come probably sooner than I want it to with all my illnesses - this is something I'd really like for other folks to be able to do. Is that weird? I wish that would be easy, I wish I could somehow use that as a launchpad into helping more authors beyond the ways I do it now (which is mostly just writing advice sometimes).

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

...

Probably a used tissue. x.x

From the Weird Writing Asks meme!

#asks and answers #memey goodness #listening to Rezz right now #and enjoying her music so much #god she's so amazing y'all should check her out even if you hate the music sdalkfjasd #she's got the rizz #anyway - yeah I don't really think I'm haunted by any of my stories #I have some mixed feelings about some #but that's really not the same as being haunted by something #as for the wishes I feel like I could've wished for more #maybe I should've wished to be like...#a millionaire writer or something #honestly it's just that I want to be financially stable #I want to help others #I want editing to not be such a drag lmao #administrator Gwyn wants this in the queue

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drdemonprince · 2 years

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Hi! I'm not sure what the best way to address this is, but I recently bought your unmasking autism book at my local barns and noble. And personally their placement of the book makes me uncomfortable. I had staff help me find it and they took me up to the parenting section, and then it's subsection of "special needs" books for parents. I said to the staff that I thought it was somewhat weird, and then got gaslit over it. Anyways, I'm just not sure how you felt about having your book in parenting

My publisher chose to have it listed it as a parenting book (among other categories such as mental health), because they believe that by putting it there, it will capture additional readers beyond my target audience of Autistic folks themselves: worried/newly adapting parents of Autistic kids (and other caretakers and educators who work with Autistics). That’s a population that’s desperate for help and receives very little of it -- and they buy a lot of books.

Based on the content of the reviews I've seen and emails I get, I think my publisher was correct. Many masked Autistics find out they’re Autistic following a child’s diagnosis. And I want Autistic kids to have a way better time in life than most of us did growing up, so my book getting in the hands of a lot of parents and educators is a wonderful thing.

Autistic children are powerless in our society, whereas adult masked Autistics have some power and autonomy in our lives. So, reaching children by reaching parents is something I really support here. I had not anticipated reaching as many parents (or getting as many emails from children!) as I have. im really glad that it shook out that way.

but yes, it was decided by people who are not me for purely capitalistic reasons. penguin random house only chose to sell my book at all because they thought they could reach a wide contingency of people -- originally, i was going to have to write the book for a general audience, not autistics themselves. i was lucky as hell to get an editor who encouraged me to write a book for autistics specifically. she managed to convince publicity and marketing that a book that niche could still be “saleable” -- by pointing out that parents and teachers would also want it. and she was right.

I can't speak to the "special needs" subsection because that's not how the book is listed on the publisher side. every store subcategorizes differently. a massive corporation like B&N using ignorant yet very widely adopted ableist language sounds about par for the course unfortunately.

I try not to worry too much about the nuts and bolts of distribution and sales because I have no authority over any of it and am not even *told* most of it. and if i were to tell you ever ignorant or undermining thing that has happened to me and my books in the years ive been a writer it would be a very very long post that might begin to convey how few spoons i have left to fight certain battles. right now i’m just happy and relieved to see my book doing well and meaning a lot to people, knowing it got to exist in the form i wanted it to. thanks for your question, and I hope you enjoy the book.

#as an aside i do not think a retail worker not agreeing with or understanding a customers concern about book listings is gaslighting #gaslighting has a very specific meaning and requires an extensive campaign of leveraging power over a person to make them doubt their sanity

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sga-owns-my-soul · 5 months

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WIP Wednesday

first of all HUGE shout out to @spurious for doing this every week and always tagging me 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 i loved seeing everyone's posts and making my own wip wednesday posts, it was so much fun and so motivating!! thank you!!!!

it's the last wednesday of the year (what the fuck) so this week it's a

✨WIP Year in Review✨

Number of WIPs Begun this Year: oh my god too many 😂 not including ones that i finished/posted, 43, including ones i've finished/posted, 96. which is, quite frankly, ridiculous considering i haven't written anything in like. 8 years

Number of WIPs Finished this Year: 53????? somehow???? that's absolute insanity to me omg

Longest-Running WIP: not surprising, my millers crossing au is currently my long-running fic 😅 and probably will be for a while

Newest WIP: my newest wip is (working title) 'Lesbian McShep ft Sam" and the concept is genderbent mcshep with john and sam being air force buddies, and sam warns john to avoid rodney bc she's a bitch- cut to a year later when they catch up back on earth and johns like yeaaaaah so i might've. accidentally fallen for the bitchy lead scientist?

Most Worked on WIP: probably my millers crossing au lmao, it's one of those fics that i'm probably going to be writing forever because there's just. so much to explore in that fic with the characters and i'm loving it so much and i can't wait to share it but it's also going to be so sad when i finish it i can tell already

Favourite WIP: oh man this is a hard one! i've done a lot of writing that i really love this year so it's hard to pick a favourite but i think if i had to narrow it down i would probably have to say either Safe House (my unhinged insane cia mcshep au where they kill abusers for fun) or Childhood Memories (rodney surprises the team with a ton of classic childhood earth activities bc 'everyone enjoys the wonder and magic of being a kid')

Favorite Completed Work: again very tough choice bc i like a lot of what i've posted this year but i think its a toss up between Bludgeoned, a very angsty rodney whump fic with the team going insane, or Not Dating, but More Than Friends, a very sweet qpr mcshep fic that i honestly think very accurately describes what their relationship to each other in canon is

WIP You're Most Excited to Finish: safe house omg i'm so close to finishing and i can't WAIT to share it idk if it'll be very well received but i'm SO excited to share it (for the very niche specific audience of one i wrote it for 😂)

WIP You're Not Sure You'll Finish: i started working on a concept at the start of the year that was radek visiting rodney every time he's in the infirmary and idk if i'll ever get around to finishing it but maybe i'll post a snippet of what i've worked on so far if people are interested

WIP Resolution for 2024: i want to finish more plot fics!! i'm pretty good at writing short little one shots but i'm shit at writing plot or longer fics and i have a lot of ideas for long fics so i wanna get better at it!

what a great year of fic writing!! thank you to everyone who joined wip wednesday and everyone who read my fics!!! this is such an incredible community and i'm so happy to be a part of it!!

as always, open tags to anyone and everyone who wants to participate!!

#wip wednesday #wip year in review #im actually shocked at how much writing i've done this year #absolutely insane #i love it #writing #kinda stargate

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and-i-said-fewer · 1 year

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HI THERE I SAW YOUR TAGS FREAKING OUT ABOUT ELBOW ON MY GERASKIER PLAYLISTS AND !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

little fictions is the only album I know by heart cover to cover, but I certainly enjoy the others!

SERIOUSLY THOUGH

WHENEVER I SEND ANYONE AN ELBOW SONG REC IN THE CONTEXT OF A CHARACTER THEY ALWAYS SAY THEYD NEVER CONSIDERED IT BEFORE AND I HONESTLY THOUGHT IT WAS JUST ME HAVING A NOT LIKE OTHER GIRLS MOMENT

you’ve made my day

holyyyyyy shittt im so sorry i didn’t see this before but it’s only *checks watch* well over a month late !! (sorry.) but yEA my mancunian friend introduced lil american me to elbow and theyve topped my spotify wrapped (yes even above tad) the past two years lol their stuff means a lot to me and is also So Good

but fs like. again i would Not ever insinuate that elbow is Niche or Unpopular—literally played the olympics etc etc—but i do think that they aren’t necessarily in The Minds Of Fandom™️ very much. but MAN they have such a great discography and sm good songs it’s like *makes aggressive grabby claws at the air* so much potential!!!! overlooked!! unseen!! (yes i’m being dramatic. not sorry)

anyways if anyone who sees this listens to elbow PLEASE hmu i love talking abt elbow songs

aaaaannndd uuuhhhhh 👉🏽👈🏽 hopefully not beign too pushy but uhhh. if anyone here wants some fandom related recs……. i’ll just throw out a couple so i’m not being Too Much but:

hotel istanbul [listed as a non-album track under the seldom seen kid (bonus tracks version) album on spotify] - oh my god if anyone listens to One [1] song i write here PLEASE let it be this one. every time i scroll through geraskier playlists and don’t see this song i feel Robbed. to me it feels sooooo them but no one else knows about it and i lose my mind. idk if musically it fits everyone’s vibe check but Lyrically. holy fuck holy shit. like to my understanding it’s abt a guy who’s havin a shite day but this other person’s presence makes them feel better or smthn??? anyways it’s fuckinnnn haaghhh i’m- it literally goes “damn your eyes / so blue” LIKE????? i lose my mind over this song in geraskier context every time someone Please listen to it and tell me if i’m going insane or not

puncture repair [under leaders of the free world album] - man i love this lil guy sm. diff energy from hotel istanbul but i see this one as the quieter geraskier moments, the travelling together for 20 years. it’s so quiet, it’s so routine, it’s motions that are muscle memory, it’s care etched in creases, it’s thoughts traced through nerves for the thousandth time. also works from either pov i think

bones of you [under the seldom seen kid album] - i think?? this could be a yennefer song??? either abt istredd or just like her past life. also sonically i rlly like the vibe for her, dunno if anyone else’d agree w that tho

audience with the pope [under the seldom seen kid album] - ok honestly i dont know if this one’s very accurate since i wouldnt call myself an arbiter of quality yen&geralt vibes, but i do think of them when i listen to this song so,,? do with that what u will

anyway i have oodles and oodles of these but these ones that r like, supported lyrically the best ig??? sorta?? maybe not but yea ive got elbow-witcher song thoughts for Days but the other ones are maybe more vibes-based so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ but if anyone’s intrigued…… i mean hmu

#witcherteevee #elbow music #this IS listen to elbow propaganda btw. unashamedly #it’s funny bc like. i listen to all the elbow albums i kinda just sometimes pick one to play off of whatever mood im in etc etc #but since they have like sm songs n albums and stuff #it was rlly funny to see my spotify wrapped songs/artists distribution #i was telling my friend who intro’d me to them that my highest elbow song was seven veils at like 22 or thereabouts #(i had like two or three tad songs top 5)#and they were like: ah. fair enough #then i dropped that ‘aND IM A TOP .005% ELBOW LISTENER AGAIN LETS GOOO-’#the individual song distribution is not the highest but with all of it combined… mwah #it’s simply bc they have too many good songs i must spread the love to all the albums

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jacqcrisis · 3 years

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Rating: Explicit Pairing: Charon/Hermes Summary: 2nd POV following vampire!Charon as he fucks ravishes 19th century aristocrat!Hermes into next week and there’s a lot of biting and some feelings at the end.

That’s the long and short of it. Have at you.

#hades game #hades fanfic #charmes #charon hades #hermes hades #jacq writes #did pretty good for writing in two days #if you trust me enough to fucking read watch the tide #you could possibly trust me enough for this #but that may be pushing it #unless vampire shit is squicky to you #or you jsut really hate 2nd person #this was a lot of fun to write #its out of my head now #i can move on from this being in my docs #im really bad at selling my fics #like i used to be a salesperson #but my style of sales is 'do you like this? no? then dont buy it'#i write for a very niche audience of me and who ever wants to enjoy what i enjoy

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blackradandmad · 3 years

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why blippi is rotting yr children's brains

preface: i literally expect no one to read this. it is an essay length, strong opinion piece critiquing a niche youtube-based children's show that i don't expect most of y'all to even have knowledge of lol. but like, i promise that even if you know nothing about what i'm talking about, in my incredibly, super humble opinion, it's a good piece of writing and interesting nonetheless. anyway if you read this whole thing for some reason yr really hot and we should kiss.

i thoroughly vet everything my child watches before he watches it, episode by episode. and we rarely watch youtube for entertainment; we usually just look up educational videos when he has a question about something and wants more detail than i can provide him. and that's mainly because children's content on youtube is so fucking troubling and distressing. i don't judge parents who give their children a tablet at a restaurant at all bc i've been there and sometimes it's easier on everyone to just put on a video and avoid a giant scene, but i do judge parents who just leave their children alone with youtube kids on autoplay.

take stevin john, a literal millionaire who got famous from dressing up as a silly character called blippi and going on tours of places like aquariums, zoos, construction sites, etc and posting it on youtube. this has branched into a whole empire of blippi videos, hulu shows and specials, live shows and tours (that he outsources to another character actor), merchandise and so on. this 30-something year old man cites his main influence as being mr. rogers, but i question if he's ever even seen an episode of that program.

mr. rogers had no background in early childhood development or media production, but he revolutionized the world of children's media, because he respected his audience and didn't shy away from real world situations, all while creating a show with an enormous heart. mr. rogers begins his episodes by inviting the viewer in, literally changing his attire to be more comfortable, and talking about/doing things he genuinely cares about. whereas mr. rogers calmly and maturely addresses the viewer, blippi puts on a high pitched, contrived voice, interjecting every other sentence with a forced exclamation such as, "teehee! we're having so much fun!"

i don't find it a coincidence that john (blippi) is a veteran, either. his videos are completely devoid of the absurd, abstract, childlike thinking that makes children's media fun, creative, and entertaining. his thinking and process is methodical, devoid of emotion, and very superficial. this line of thinking clearly shows the kind of creative sterilization and emphasis on sameness and conformity instilled in the military. blippi simply observes things and interacts with them in a stale, matter-of-fact way. "this ball is purple! this ball is pink! anyway... what's over there? teehee! a car! vroom, vroom!" objects are colors, toy cars don't do anything but drive, curiosity is simply not encouraged.

he uses the "it's educational!" excuse to hide the fact that his show lacks everything that makes media a valuable resource for children to consume in the first place. further than identifying colors, numbers, and the occasional letter or shape, there is just this total lack of children's need for social and emotional development. when mr. rogers breaks the fourth wall to address the viewer and let them know they're special, it feels authentic and natural, because we've spent the last half hour building whole worlds with diverse characters and unique stories in a pretend neighborhood, learning about and enjoying different musical instruments, being exposed to and making friends with (even if parasocially, it is still a real bond to children when done properly) children who are similar to us in character regardless of physical or environmental differences, feeding the fish, making art together, and so on. when blippi tells the viewer, "you are very special, and i enjoy spending time with you!" it falls completely flat and feels unearned, because the last half hour was spent running around a soft play center pointing at bright, colorful objects, visiting interesting locations like farms or fruit production factories while failing to acknowledge the humanity of the humans actually working there (everything is machine or product focused; the human workers are simply an extension of the machine), learning "fun facts" about elephants that just list attributes of elephants, not taking the opportunity to inform the viewers of elephants' intelligence, or diet, or matriarchal society. it is a loud, sensory overwhelming display of a man so disconnected from the social and emotional needs and desires of children that he assumes they're stupid, easily entertained idiots who only need some silly dances and fast-moving cartoon graphics to give their attention (meaning time and desire to purchase products meaning $$$). john clearly views his audience as a means to gaming the algorithm and ultimately a paycheck by the hollow way he addresses them.

the show is so narcissistic, so focused on all the fun blippi is supposedly having, but he lacks any of the character traits that make individual children's show hosts memorable, so much so that he was able to have someone else who doesn't even vaguely resemble him dress as blippi and impersonate him and host the show or appear at live shows, and it went unnoticed by most of his toddler and child audience. the show is so formulaic and the character of blippi is so unmemorable that instead of taking the blue's clues route of developing a story of the host leaving for college and his brother now stepping in, or making some sort of believable excuse for the change in actors, they can simply swap him out with some random guy and not acknowledge it at all. although a comedy show for older children, the amanda show in no way could or would try to replicate the show with the same name but swapping out amanda bynes with a random teenage girl who is clearly not amanda bynes. it's weird and nonsensical and shows that his character is so much of a farce put on for a paycheck that not even his dedicated audience is affected or even cares when he is replaced by a random, unknown person.

this is completely garbage content made by an opportunist with no experience with children who saw his nephew watching children's youtube content, took it at complete surface level and still hasn't realized that while children's content only looks and feels so easy, entertaining, and enriching because it is so hard to do well. even with outsourcing his music, that aspect of the show still sucks. famous and successful children's musician, raffi, is known for his song describing the life of a little white whale, called "baby beluga." it opens with a calm strumming of his guitar, followed by the lyrics, "baby beluga in the deep blue sea/swim so wild and you swim so free/heaven above/sea below/and a little white whale on the go." is it silly and kind of pointless? yes, but the point is that he is captivating children and showing them the fun of listening to music, dancing, singing, and appreciating art. the "excavator song" featured in an episode of blippi about construction vehicles opens with what sounds like a default garageband loop and the flatly sung lyrics, "i'm an excavator/i'm an excavator/hey dirt, see you later/i'm an excavator." i don't feel i have to meticulously analyze the aforementioned lyrics; the stark contrast should speak for itself.

i have a million more criticisms about both blippi specifically and youtube children's content as a whole, but this is already so long and i doubt many people will get this far anyway. it's an issue i was completely apathetic towards until i had my own child and had to wean him off these kinds of junk food shows because i realized the fast-paced visuals and bright colors and repetitive songs/lyrics were putting him in this spaced-out, fugue state, and he thought he could demand this show or that show whenever he wanted. the moment he started regularly yelling things like, "watch! cars!" or "no! click it!" i knew i had to be a lot more invested in the things he watched even if just for entertainment or as a soothing message. i showed him an episode of mr. rogers yesterday and feared it would be too slow to hold his attention, but he was mesmerized, greeting and interacting with mr. rogers verbally, asking me, "what's that?" to different objects on the screen. since purging this low-brow children's entertainment, he has had a noticeable increase in attention span and concentration, can focus on a task for longer amounts of times, is more likely to "read"/look through books without me initiating it, and doesn't throw a fit when the tv/my laptop is off.

i just know that for me, growing up with so much unsupervised internet access definitely led me to real-world pain and consequences, and it seems like now children are born with an iphone as an extension of their arm. if my child is going to be consuming videos, i'm definitely supervising every second and am going to be highly critical of the videos and the credentials (or lack thereof) of the creators and team behind it. but i also know, from pure observation admittedly, that parents letting youtube kids autoplay parent their children for hours at a time is not an uncommon occurrence. and it worries me that a generation of children are being raised on videos that rely on being as loud and bright and superficially enjoyable as possible. what's the use of a child knowing their colors and alphabet if they don't know how to treat people with kindness and empathy and respect? there is something wrong for a children's show host to plug the spelling of his name at the end of his videos ("well, that's the end of this video. but if you wanna watch more of my videos, just type in my name! can you spell my name with me? b-l-i-p-p-i!") after essentially rotting his audiences' brains for a half hour. there's something so insidious about the prioritization of naming different parts of construction vehicles over honest depictions of and conversations about dealing with feelings, or why someone with autism may act differently than you, or what to do when you feel lonely, or ways to make art and express yrself creatively. also, not to mention the blatant police propaganda and outright worship is seriously jarring; as a black mother to a visibly non-white child, i cannot sit there and watch blippi show kids how to be a bootlicker for the shittiest profession on earth, but that could be a whole essay in and of itself.

anyway, thanks for reading, if yr looking for quality children's content, i recommend, in no specific order: mr. rogers, sesame street, the electric company, molly of denali, daniel tiger, bluey!, blue's clues, the odd squad, word party, trash truck, puffin rock, uhh... that's definitely not an extensive list but that's just off the dome!!! ok bye y'all <333

#lil rambles #long post t #idk why it's formatted like this ig cos i copy pasted from my fb?#whatever anyway idk why i waste my writing skills on shit literally nobody else but me cares abt #blippi #children's television

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finalfantasyix · 3 years

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Meet The Team Working On A Final Fantasy 9 Remake You’ll Never Get To Play

Final Fantasy 9: Memoria Project is a fan homage like nothing we've ever seen before. “It is no secret that fan projects get shut down all the time,” Dan Eder tells us about Final Fantasy 9: Memoria Project, a fan-driven love letter to the classic JRPG. It isn’t aiming to be a playable remake of the epic adventure though - instead, it’s an aesthetic homage to its timeless world and characters.

It’s somewhat anomalous in the world of community creations, but Eder wants to use this distinct identity to craft something truly special, even if many obstacles stand in the way of making it a reality. But the team keeps moving forward: “Without a doubt, some of the most frequent comments we get from naysayers is ‘have fun with it while it lasts’ or ‘cease and desist incoming’”, Eder explains. “People are understandably skeptical of the longevity potential of yet another passion project. The key difference is that, unlike those projects, Memoria is essentially an elaborate piece of fan art, nothing more - it will have no actual gameplay, will never be released to the public, and is nothing more than a ‘what-if’ scenario. [It’s] no different from any other fan-made piece of artwork. We have never, and will never, make a single dollar out of this project, and are basically doing this for the personal gratification of the fans.”

The genesis of Memoria Project dates all the way back to Eder’s younger years, with dreams of a potential FF9 remake entering his imagination soon after the original game’s launch. That’s no great surprise - millions still regard Final Fantasy 9 as the series’ finest hour. “While it's true that the project really started to pick up steam a few months ago, it wouldn't be a stretch to say I've been planning it since high school,” Eder explains. “I remember scribbling ‘FF9 remake’ on my notepad during classes and writing imaginary new features and battle system mechanics, starting online petitions to remake FF9 for the PS2, sketching drawings depicting scenes from the ‘FF9 sequel’ and whatnot. I could confidently say that my life would probably have been completely different had my older brother not borrowed this game from his friend in the summer of 2000.

“As a non-native English speaker who had never played an RPG up until that point, my first playthrough was a challenging experience to say the least, and I can honestly say that I understood literally nothing of what was going on the first time I finished the game (how I even managed to beat it is a mystery in and of itself). It didn't really matter to me though, since I was absolutely enamored with the incredible cast of characters, jaw-dropping FMV sequences, mesmerizing music, thrilling gameplay, and just the overall atmosphere and charm it exuded at every step. My unconditional love for this game persisted throughout my entire childhood and adult life, and it is one of the central reasons why I chose to become a 3D character artist in the video game industry. In short, this project is my way of thanking this game for everything it has done for me over the past 21 years.”

Eder’s passion for this game can be found across several industry professionals who grew up with games like this and wanted to replicate them, or create something entirely unique to live up to their brilliance. This is very much how Memoria Project found its feet, beginning life as a trivial side activity before blossoming into something infinitely more ambitious. It still has a long way to go, but there’s little urgency to reach the finish line, so the team can take their time and just enjoy the nostalgic indulgence of it all.

“Memoria actually started unofficially as a side project when I reached out to Colin Valek [of] Sucker Punch Studios in early 2020 after I came across his fanart of an environment from FF7,” Eder says. “I had already modeled Princess Garnet, and thought it could be a fun idea to combine our talents to reimagine the opening area of Alexandria. Initially, it was progressing at a snail's pace - we were slowly chipping away at it for over a year without making a lot of progress. While Colin continued modeling the buildings, I created another character - Vivi.”

This glacial pace received a resurgence of sorts in January when the Alexandria scene was finally complete, with Eder and company finally being able to see how much potential the project had if it was opened up to a larger range of creators. “When I posted that WIP screenshot, the response from fellow FF fans was overwhelmingly positive, more than we could have imagined,” Eder remembers. “Very quickly, other people from the gaming industry started reaching out - environment artists, animators, riggers, concept artists. That's when I decided to turn this side project into a full-fledged modern reimagining of the original game, while always making sure to emphasize the fact that this is a non-playable proof-of-concept, since we never have any intention of doing anything to violate Square Enix's copyright. Four months after officially announcing the project, we've grown from a couple of FF fanboys to a huge team of over 20 industry veterans working collaboratively to honor this masterpiece, fueled by our love and adoration for the source material.”

Now, the project has over 20 developers from Sucker Punch, Ubisoft, Rare, Unbroken Studios, and more all diving into this labour of love in their spare time, with composers and voice actors also contributing their talents to help make this glimpse into the world of Final Fantasy 9 worth celebrating. But Eder is aware of being overly enthusiastic, knowing that fan projects like this often doom themselves by undertaking something that isn’t feasible with so few resources.

“One of the most common traps for these kinds of fan projects is being overly ambitious,” Eder says. “Since all of us are actively working in the video game industry, we understand the importance of milestones, short term goals, and taking things one step at a time. For now, we are focusing our efforts on the opening sequence of the game, which mainly revolves around Vivi and his exploration of Alexandria. Where we go from here is still being discussed, but one thing I can say for sure is that Vivi will not be the only main character we're planning to include.” I’m told that Memoria is aiming to look indistinguishable - at least from a graphics perspective - from something you’d see in a triple-A blockbuster, and it seems the team has the pedigree to back that claim up.

Visuals are the entire point after all, since turning this project into a playable piece of media would require far more resources to create. By narrowing its focus, Memoria is able to deliver something special while also hopefully avoiding the ire of Square Enix. “The fact that this is a non-playable project definitely makes it easier for us to tailor the experience in a way that would truly allow the audience to be fully immersed in the world without having to worry about technical limitations,” Eder tells me. “Creating actual functional gameplay is a completely different ball game, one that we never had any intention of even discussing given the copyright limitations. This gives us a lot of leeway with how we are going to portray the world of Gaia in terms of character interaction, camera movement, [and] scene transitions. We have a lot of cool plans for the near future - please look forward to it!”

As for the sad truth of fan projects like this often being wiped from existence by publishers throwing out cease and desist letters, Eder is confident that Memoria occupies a niche where this won’t happen. It’s not a commercial or even playable product - it’s a piece of fan art, albeit an endlessly elaborate one. If the tides were to change, Eder believes companies should welcome the enthusiasm for experiences like this.

“If I were to be completely honest, I think it could be a potentially brilliant decision by Square Enix to do something wildly unexpected and invest in a project like this,” Eder states. “There's a considerable amount of hype, talent, motivation, and pure, unadulterated passion behind it. It's not something I would expect, but I think it could be incredibly helpful in regaining some of the trust and reverence that this legendary company was known for during its golden years.”

(source)

#final fantasy ix #memoria project #final fantasy 9 #ffix: memoria project #article #news #interview #long post #very long post!

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kuiperblog · 3 years

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Deathloop sure is a video game

Every October, there's pop-up entertainment venues like "haunted houses" (or other haunted attractions) that attempt to artificially recreate the motifs common in horror movies, complete with live actors who are dressed as vampires or zombies or serial killers or whatever who leap out and scare the guests who squeal in delight, if only because it gives them an excuse to tightly cling to their partner. It's more exciting than going to a horror movie, because it's a more tactile experience, so you're mostly just there to experience the various horror motifs without being concerned about a plot.

The thing is, there are actual horror movies that are set in haunted attractions. And while this does make for some fun early reveals (like when the teenagers laugh at the knife-wielding man who they assume is an actor and part of the attraction, only to realize that he's actually a homicidal madman), the very idea of a horror movie set in a haunted house kind of feels like cheating. Haunted attractions are, in a way, a simulacrum of a horror movie, which I suppose is an odd thing to say considering that haunted attractions are real and the events in horror movies are not, but I think that is the main level on which most haunted attractions are designed: a haunted attraction is a "horror movie IRL," so to then make that the setting of your horror movie “horror movie IRL but in a movie” is like a simulacrum of a simulacrum. It’s shortcutting past the part where you would ordinarily come up with some kind of lore-based explanation for why the teenagers are hanging out in a creepy house and why there’s a demented killer or vampires or whatever who are trying to kill them.

I sort of feel this way about one of the first levels I played in Deathloop, which is a video game both in medium and form. It's a bit like Dishonored (one of Arkane's earlier titles) in the sense that the core objectives boil down to identifying an assassination target, and hunting them down in their mansion or laboratory or whatever. The first target I assassinated was a fellow by the name of Charlie Montague, who is obsessed with games, and has populated a section of the world where you can speed-run an obstacle course to be rewarded with a gun, because this is a first-person shooter video game that is set on murder island, where everyone's favorite hobby is killing each other because they’re in a timeloop where everyone will revive the next day. However, when I found Charlie Montague, he was in the middle of a LARP session. This is literally how the game describes it: Charlie is hosting a game where he invites guests to participate in a game somewhat akin to a murder mystery, or maybe more like Among Us. When I arrived, Charlie announced over the loudspeaker to all of his guests that the killer monster (me) had arrived, and the objective was now for them to hunt me down. (I, for my part, did my best to avoid the guests, but I had to gun down the entire party before finally getting to Charlie at the top floor.)

So, this is a video game level that felt very much like a video game level. Which I don't really mean as a knock against it -- it was a fun environment, I had fun hunting down the game designer Charlie Montague and murdering his LARPing buddies, and the environment was set up in a way that made the confrontation with Charlie himself interesting, since Charlie possesses the blink power that lets him teleport across gaps and between floors. But it kind of feels like cheating to have a video game level where the setting premise is, as explained by the game's fiction, literally a game created by a game designer (as opposed to trying to sell you on the idea that the level you're traipsing through is just some rich dude's mansion, or a military base, or whatever). It is the video game equivalent of setting your horror movie in a haunted house attraction.

As an Arkane Studios fan (who started with 2006's Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, and counts Dishonored among my personal top 10 games of all time), I quite enjoyed Deathloop. But it is by far the most video game video game that they've ever released.

Games like Dishonored and Prey (2017) exist in what is sometimes described as the "immersive sim" genre, where there's a big emphasis on player choice and giving the players a bunch of tools to approach objectives without giving them a prescribed route through the game. Dishonored pushes you in the direction of being stealthy and quiet (with a "chaos" system that causes the world to become more desolate if you kill too many enemies in each level), but there are many routes through the levels -- and sometimes, you'll find your way to an objective through what feels like it isn't a prescribed "route" at all. The objectives are often quite simple -- "infiltrate, kill a dude, exfiltrate" -- but a level that could be completed in just a few minutes might take an hour to complete the first time you play it as you spend time scoping out the target, gradually getting a feel for the environment and learning which parts of the level have lots of enemies and which parts are safe and easy to stealth your way through.

The immersive sim's emphasis on carving your own way through levels leads to a phenomenon where a lot of the progression that you make is "meta" progression that exists entirely outside of your avatar -- you might spend an hour prowling around a level, and your character hasn't gotten any stronger (apart from maybe finding a few optional collectibles), but you as a player have "leveled up" to the point that you now know the level like the back of your hand, which is how you have people who spend hours exploring a level in Hitman so that they can do a perfect 5-minute speedrun of that level.

Sometimes, this sense of "meta-progression" is further emphasized by making some of the collectibles information that you as a player can store. I remember a part in Dishonored where I found a locked safe, and I had to root around the game environment and find the code to the safe before I could come back and get the goodie inside. But if I wanted to, I could write that number down so that on any subsequent playthrough, I could just go right to the safe and open it right away -- which feels a bit like cheating, but it's no less cheating than sprinting through a specific route through a level because I know from previous playthroughs that the path I'm taking has no guards.

Deathloop isn't quite like that: the game is filled with combinations and whatnot (in one "puzzle" I had to insert specifically-labeled tapes into a machine in a specific order), but all of these are generated randomly: you can't take that information with you across playthroughs, and you can't look the number up in a walkthrough like some older immersive sims would let you do. But Deathloop takes this meta progression and makes it actual progression: it's a time-loop story, and your character (Colt) remembers everything that he encounters across playthrough, so when you find the combination to a door, Colt will make a mental note of it (no need to bust out your pen and paper), and the next time you come to a locked door that requires that combination, you don't even have to punch in the numbers: just hold the triangle button on your Playstation controller and Colt will automatically punch in the numbers that he learned during an earlier loop.

Deathloop is full of little things like this that, on first glance, almost just feel like QoL improvements. But there's something that feels very different about how things are done in Deathloop: in gameplay terms, it basically boils down to, "Go to this place and press square to read the password, then go to this other place and unlock the door," which is really not that different from "go to this place and press square to pick up the key, then go to this other place to unlock the door." The "passwords" that exist throughout this game are basically just keys that Colt can store in his brain and take with him whenever you advance to the next loop.

And to be clear, that's not necessarily a *bad* thing. In fact, immersive sims are kind of a niche genre that don't have a very big audience, so anything that helps streamline and make it more like, well, what you'd expect from a "video game," is probably going to make the game accessible to a lot more people. And they streamline a *lot* in this game. The game is all about planning the "perfect loop" where you manage to kill the 8 big baddies in a single day, and everything before that point is just preparing for that final loop. Even though that seems like an abstract thing that might require you to hold a bunch of disparate information in your head, the game is actually *really* good at making it so that Colt is already mentally mapping out the game plan as you go, to the point where you can just go into the quest book, select a thread, and then just follow the waypoints. Colt is planning for the "perfect loop" and collecting all the information he needs (including passwords, and memorizing information about how to get certain bosses to go to certain areas where they'll be vulnerable), and Colt is so good at remembering these things that the player never has to: you can play the entire game from start to finish just by traveling from waypoint to waypoint and stealthing or shooting your way past anything that stands in your way.

That is, of course, incredibly reductive. The process of getting from point A to point B in Deathloop is fun for the same reason that getting from point A to point B is fun in any other game. The guns feel good to shoot, the levels are interesting to navigate, and the game lets you earn the ability to take certain pieces of gear with you between loops so it always feels like there's forward progression. But I think that there's a critical thing that's missing:

Immersive sims aren't just about getting from point A to point B. Before you can get to point B, you have to discover where point B is. *Where* in this mansion is the assassination target? Better spend some time skulking around and listening to his staff gossip about his daily habits so you know which parts of the mansion he's likely to appear in. Oh wait, I don't want to just get in the same room with this guy, I want to get myself in the same room with him *when he's not surrounded by his guards*. How do I do that? Better do some more snooping. And in a sense, Deathloop *sort* of does this. Before you can follow the waypoint objective marker to your target, you have to find out where they are. But the "find out where they are" is often, "follow this *other* waypoint objective marker to find the slip of paper that tells you where they're going to be, at which point you can follow the waypoint objective marker to their exact location!"

And to be fair to Deathloop, it's not *all* like that. There are some times where the game sort of just points you in the right direction and leaves you to figure it out, like one dude who has hosted a masquerade party where he and his guests are all wearing the same masks, and so you have to figure out a way to ferret him out. (Or you can just murder everyone at the party to figure it out by process of elimination -- which is actually much easier said than done, because this is murder island and everybody is packing heat, and this is an exclusive party so his guests are the type of people who carry around heavy weapons.)

Another way that Deathloop takes the "meta progression" inherent to immersive sims and makes it explicit in-game progression is by having a time loop where you can encounter and kill the same targets over and over again. That's the kind of thing that tends to happen in immersive sims across multiple playthroughs -- Hitman doesn't *require* you to play each level multiple times, but you generally want to, because each level is filled with tons of different routes to explore and different ways to deal with each of the targets. But that's all on the player: it's not as if in the fiction of the Hitman universe, Agent 47 is repeatedly murdering a bunch of people who magically revive so that he can kill them again, whereas in Deathloop, that is very explicitly what is happening.

The thing is, because Deathloop is kind of designed with the assumption that you'll kill each target multiple times, the first time you encounter them and blow their head off, it doesn't feel like the grand emotional climax. In fact, in a way, it feels like the *start* of a relationship. "Goodbye, Charlie Montague. I hardly knew ye. But I'm sure I'll know you better by the third time I'm leaving your LARPing session with that slab upgrade you're carrying." I feel like that robs the kills of some of their impact, and maybe that's just inherent to what kind of game this is: in Dishonored, you feel as though over the course of a level, you get to know your target as you snoop through their quarters, overhear what their staff have to say about them, read the journals of their rivals while looking for possible weaknesses, and so on. Because it's a stealth game, it makes sense to hide in the background and learn about their life. Stalking a character through a level while waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike can actually feel incredibly intimate, because as the eponymous Visible Man in Chuck Klosterman’s novel says, to truly know who someone is, you have to see them when they’re alone at home; their behavior anywhere else is just a performance.

But when I'm chasing down Charlie Montague with an SMG in one hand and a pistol in the other, the only thing I really know about him is what he's announcing over the loudspeaker. (I don't really remember exactly what he said, but the subtext is that he's mentally unstable, and he's obsessed with games.) And even though Charlie Montague was shouting at me what kind of person he said, I feel like I never really got to *know* him like I got to know some targets in Dishonored. In fact, the moments when I got to know Charlie best weren't when he was yelling at my over the loudspeaker as I ran through his level as Shooty McFPS guy, but the moments when I got to read his notes or chat correspondence (which is *entirely optional*, because even if I don't learn the relevant facts from Charlie Montague's notes, Cole will -- and he'll verbally narrate the cliffsnotes version of them as I'm headed to the next objective)

Despite feeling like a clear descendant of Arkane’s earlier titles, Deathloop feels neither "immersive" nor "sim." It's constantly doing things that remind me that I'm playing a video game -- which, to be clear, is not a bad thing! It’s fun to be Shooty McFPS guy without worrying about hiding guards bodies or making noise. More than any other Arkane Studios game, it does everything it can to minimize player frustration, whether that means feeling lost, or feeling like you're not making forward progress, or feeling like your progress is being gated by a huge spike in difficulty.

Dishonored is a game that rewards patience. This is one of my favorite things about it, but the fact that it rewards patience so generously means that it also *asks* patience of the player in order to get its best moments, which means that some players will never experience them. Deathloop asks very little from the player. Deathloop is a very "even" and "smooth" experience, but that's both for better and for worse. The lows aren't as low, but the highs aren't nearly as high. Deathloop is a good game. And it will probably be a "good game" to a greater number of people than Arkane's previous titles, but it didn’t have nearly the same impact on me.

Anyway, more than anything, my time with Deathloop has convinced that I should go back and play Prey (2017).

#deathloop #arkane studios #I apologize for such a long letter #dishonored #prey 2017 #immersive sim #video games

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mariecuttlefish · 3 years

Text

Cooling Off [3k words, MariexAgent 3]

It's been a while since I had new writing to post! This is a belated piece for @receding-tides, mainly starring their Agent 3, Faye, and Marie (though Callie and another of their OCs are there as well).

External links: [Google Docs], [AO3]

Warnings: None. Appropriate for teenage audiences.

Description: When Marie has a hard time handling the summer heat, Faye steps in to offer some comfort.

---

The sky overhead was as blue and bright as the air was thick and soupy. Midsummer heat bore down persistently, each brief respite of shade subdued by an ever-present humidity that clung to exposed skin and made ink drip from tentacles. What little breeze did manage to cut through was slow and dampened by the squiff.

Marie clung to her parasol, fighting her tired arms to keep it aloft and get what little shelter from the sunlight she could. The weather forecast playing on the lobby television before she left the hotel that morning had warned of high temperatures, and she'd prepared as best she could to deal with it, but for all her efforts to stay cool she'd still sharply underestimated how draining it would be to spend the day mostly outside. Several hours of milling between storefronts had left her exhausted and struggling to keep pace. At least the group she was with was small — just her, Callie, and their respective partners — so she didn't have to worry about crowding on top of it.

"Alright, you guys! The concert is starting soon, let's head over!" Her cousin, on the other hand, seemed no less energetic than she had been that morning, bounding forward without a care. Marie couldn't understand how she was still so upbeat, especially with her near-black tentacles that had to be tied up just to keep her from tripping on them. Surely those things were unbearable heat sinks, right?

"Hopefully there'll be some place to sit," Jake said from Callie's side. He was making a noticeable effort to keep his balance as Callie swung his hand to and fro in her own, and if Marie only possessed the energy to be amused she probably would have had a hard time containing her laughter at the sight. As things stood, she could only think about how much she agreed with his sentiment. "My legs are killing me... couldn't we have shown up to the mall later if we're just here for the show at the boardwalk?"

Callie raspberried that notion. "It's the Seaspray Galleria, of course we're not just here for the concert!" She shook the collection of overly decorative bags in her other hand for emphasis. "This is basically the biggest mall outside of Inkopolis! No way could we spend a week in the area and not go on a shopping spree! Right, Mar?"

"Mmh." Marie offered a noncommittal shrug, trying (but probably failing) to seem a bit less exhausted as the couple turned to look at her. She wasn't the biggest on shopping even in a good mood — trying to find places for everything back at the apartment was too much of a bother — but this mall was big and fancy enough to include a couple of niche health food stores, so she'd gotten to enjoy the rare indulgence of stocking up on snacks she would actually be able to eat. She just wished they would've put a roof over the place instead of pursuing the 'open-air market' aesthetic.

Whatever Marie's opinions of the mall were, though, her acting was about as weak right now as she imagined. Immediately Callie slowed down, a look of concern in her eyes. "Wait, are you doing okay? You look super out of it…"

There was exactly the thing she'd hoped to avoid: people noticing she wasn't feeling well. Marie was too used to being the more sensitive half of the Squid Sisters, the one who avoided any big events their manager didn't push her to attend and who was more often than not the cause for them having to leave things early. Seeing how excited Callie was to visit this place and watch one of their shared favorite bands perform on the boardwalk outside the mall had made her determined to stick it out and get through the entire day, and now that it was getting into the evening and the sun was starting to set she was almost there. The last thing she wanted was to disappoint her cousin by forcing them all to head back to the hotel early. Sure, the alternative meant a probably-miserable hour of noise and confusion when she was already feeling lightheaded from the temperature, but it wasn't anything she hadn't put up with for her own performances before; she could tolerate it to make her cousin happy.

Then followed another wave of embarrassment as she felt a gentle hand come to rest on her back. "Are you sure you don't need to go back to the hotel?" Faye asked softly, aiming her words at Marie alone rather than the whole of the group. Of course her girlfriend had picked up on how tired Marie was first, and had asked about it a couple of times whenever Callie and Jake weren't paying attention, but when Marie had insisted she was fine Faye had let the topic go. Marie knew she wasn't going to be so lax about it now that the others had confirmed she wasn't just misinterpreting things.

"'m fine," Marie answered with a meek wave of her hand. The words didn't quite want to come out, but they would have to deal with it.

"Just... tired."

"Marie—" Callie took a step forward but stopped as Faye raised a hand, gesturing for her to give some space.

"We have some time until the concert thing, right? Let's sit down for a bit in the shade," Faye said, carefully guiding Marie to a bench a short distance away. As the two sat down Faye offered a bottle of water, which Marie traded for her parasol without protest. Callie and Jake followed close behind, Jake taking the opposite end of the bench to rest his legs while Callie leaned up against the wall beside; both looked worried — more worried than Marie wanted them to be — but seemed at least to take the hint that crowding around her wouldn't help.

For a while they sat there, Faye fiddling with the parasol to figure out how best to block the sunlight while Marie tried to find a balance between the desire to curl up in her girlfriend's arms and the knowledge that they were still very much in a public space. Several minutes passed without many words spoken until, at last, the awkward quiet was broken by Callie pushing off of the wall and gesturing toward the restrooms across the nearby courtyard. "I'm gonna go use the bathroom real quick, should I grab some more water on my way back?"

"I got a couple more bottles, don't worry," Faye replied. As Callie headed off across the courtyard, her attention returned to Marie. "How're you feeling? It's okay to go back to the hotel if you need to."

Marie frowned and clung to her girlfriend's arm. "Callie wants to see the concert..." she answered reluctantly. Her voice felt scratchy and gross even though she was halfway through the bottle of water at this point; maybe, she decided, she would just avoid talking after all.

Faye leaned her head against Marie's. "Is that why you've been saying you're fine all this time, so Callie doesn't have to leave early?" Marie didn't want to answer that, but she knew her silence gave it away. "Love, you and I can go back just the two of us. I'm sure Callie and Jake'll be fine on their own for another hour or two.”

That... somehow hadn't occurred to Marie. The prospect of going back to the hotel to be alone with Faye was already an easy winner in her book, and if she could have that and not have to make Callie miss out on something at the same time... Of course, she would still miss out on a band she adored, but that wasn’t as much a concern; she’d already seen the Chirpy Chips play at least a dozen times before, and in more pleasant weather. Hesitantly, she nodded her head, and Faye wrapped an arm around her shoulder to give a comforting hug.

"We'll head back, then." Faye motioned for Jake's attention (which wasn't hard to get when he had already been keeping an eye on Marie to begin with) and nodded in the direction Callie had left in. "Can you let her know once she's out of the bathroom?"

Jake nodded. "Can do. Text one of us once you're there so we know you made it back alright?"

"Yeah," Faye agreed. "And make sure you both take care, too. I know you're alright with the heat but I have a feeling Callie's gonna start feeling it soon herself." Taking one of the remaining bottles of water she'd brought with her, she handed it to him.

"Yeah, I'll keep an eye out! I hope you feel better soon, Marie." Marie managed a polite nod in place of saying anything, hoping Jake would interpret that as a sufficient gesture of appreciation.

"Thanks, Jake," Faye added, and moments later she and Marie were away, navigating back through the scattered crowd of shoppers to make their way to the bus stop.

* * * * *

Air conditioning was simultaneously the best and worst thing after a day like this. On one hand, the heavy, artificial breeze that billowed through the bus to the hotel was exactly what Marie needed to stop her from feeling like she might melt at any moment; on the other, it did little to negate the humidity, instead simply blowing the moisture around until Marie was coated in an invisible layer of grime. By the time she and Faye walked back into the hotel and felt the sweet, freezing relief of expensive "we-don't-want-a-single-customer-complaining" central air, Marie felt substantially more comfortable emotionally but also five degrees of unpleasant physically.

They wasted no time lingering in the lobby. It felt even more awkward to be overheated and out of it in a neat and quiet place like that than it had sitting outside in a public mall, and with the privacy of their room so near Marie could at least muster up the energy to carry herself into the elevator and down the hallway. No sooner was the door opened than Marie was finding her way to bed, lazily tossing aside the mask and sunglasses she'd worn to hide herself from any paparazzi and letting down her tentacles as she flopped face-down into the welcoming embrace of an overly-plush comforter.

Behind her she heard the sounds of Faye settling in as well, setting aside the few bags the two of them had brought from the mall (and putting the snacks Marie had bought into the room's minifridge; Marie made a mental note to give her a kiss for that later) before quietly sitting down on the bed beside Marie. Fingers brushed the back of her neck, coming up to soothingly stroke her mantle, and Marie slowly rolled onto her side so she could look up at her. "Hey there," Faye said, her voice even more tender now that they were alone.

"Mmm... hey," Marie murmured, her eyes drooping with exhaustion. Wordlessly she lifted her head up and scooted over to rest it in Faye's lap, curling up by her side.

Faye looked down at her with a gentle smile. Carefully she brushed Marie's longest tentacles to the side, keeping them out of her face. "How are you feeling?"

"Kinda dumb…" Marie wasn't eager to admit it. She averted her eyes, which unfortunately left her with little to look at but the front of Faye's shirt. In the back of her mind, she silently cursed the fact that feeling bad could make eye contact with her own girlfriend so hard.

"Marie," Faye started, not a trace of frustration behind the word. A hand slid under Marie's jaw to guide her to look back upward; Marie settled for the compromise of staring at Faye's cheek. "It's okay. It's good to tell people when you aren't feeling well."

"Says you," Marie murmured. "You're like, the queen of not asking for help." As soon as the words left her mouth she worried they'd come out meaner than she meant, but Faye just smirked.

"Takes one to know one, I guess." Pulling a pillow over from the end of the bed to place behind her, Faye laid back, tousling Marie's tentacles. It was a comfortable feeling, and Marie couldn't help but purr as she nuzzled her head into Faye's hand.

"I guess you're right," she said quietly. "Sorry I was so resistant."

Faye shook her head. "You don't have to apologize, it's okay. I'm just glad you said something before it got too bad." Stretching, she held her arms out, gesturing as if she was waiting for a hug. "Now c'mere, dear."

Marie smiled and scooted up to meet the embrace. She wrapped her arms tightly around Faye, half-laying on top of her, and nestled her head into the crook of Faye's neck. A small part of her worried that the accumulated grime from being out in the heat would make cuddling less appealing, but before she had the chance to dwell on that thought Faye was hugging her closer with one arm wrapped around her shoulders, leaning down to plant a kiss at the top of her head. Another long purr built up in her chest and Faye chuckled, idly running a thumb along her shoulder.

The pair got comfortable like that, relaxing together for a moment before Faye reached into her pocket suddenly. "Oh—" she started, then pulled out her phone and began tapping something out with the hand that wasn't occupied holding Marie.

"Hmm?" Marie glanced up through one half-open eye, her face buried against Faye's skin. Her girlfriend was comfortable, and despite how they'd spent the day still had a faint pleasant smell about her; now that they were alone together and able to relax under proper air conditioning, it was taking all of Marie's concentration not to fall asleep where she was. "Looking something up?" she mumbled.

"Just texting Jake," Faye answered. "Almost forgot to let him know we made it back to the hotel."

Marie hummed. "Ask him how Callie's doing? Probably pretty well, if the Chips have started playing."

Faye smiled at that. "I'll ask." She typed out a few more words before at last hitting send, then plopped her arm onto the bed beside her with the phone held just loosely enough that she'd notice it vibrate if a text came in. She didn't need to wait long; hardly a minute later the phone buzzed with a pair of incoming messages, and Faye picked it up again to read them.

"Says Callie's doing fine, but he noticed the heat was starting to get to her too so they found a bench in the shade for the concert. Callie won't stop dancing in her seat. Oh, and Jake says hello."

Marie snorted. That sounded like her cousin, for sure. "Hiii, Jake," she murmured lightheartedly. Satisfied to know things were fine back at the mall, she stopped resisting the exhaustion in her eyelids and let them droop shut, instantly feeling the urge to fall asleep take over her. The passive discomfort of overheating was still there — Marie made a mental note to take a long bath as soon as she had the energy to get up — but she was cozy, her girlfriend was soft, and the slow rise and fall of Faye's chest as she breathed in and out held the perfect rhythm to lull a very tired squid to sleep…

When Marie opened her eyes again, it was hard to tell how much time had passed. The dim evening light filtering in through the curtained windows was gone, leaving most of the hotel room dark save for the single light turned on at the entrance. Faye was in the same place she had been (predictably so, considering how thoroughly Marie was curled around her), watching what looked like an old soap opera at minimum volume on the TV that she'd somehow managed to turn on. When she felt Marie stirring, she turned her head to look at her and smiled. "Good morning, sleepyhead."

Marie started to speak, but the difficulty of forming words was compounded by the grog of waking up at odd hours. Instead she just rubbed her cheek against Faye's neck and purred affectionately, content to stay comfortable in her love's arms. Faye smiled and brought her hand to rest against the small of Marie's back, gently tugging the back of her shirt up to rub soothing circles against her skin. The contact made Marie shiver as her nerves woke up, and she clung tighter to Faye, wanting nothing more than to stay there for as long as she could.

"You fell asleep for about an hour and a half," Faye cooed, guessing the question Marie had tried to ask. "Callie and Jake got back to the hotel a little bit ago. They said the concert was great, Callie wishes you could've been there for it.”

Marie gave a little nod, turning her head away from Faye to clear her throat. When she spoke her voice came out raspy and inconsistent, but she could wait a little longer to get up for a drink of water. "Did they say if they were going to sleep yet?" Even if she still wasn't feeling well, a part of her wanted to poke into their room and verify that she was, in fact, alive and not a pile of melted ink on the floor.

Faye shrugged. "Nah, but knowing the two of them they've probably just been in their room making out since they got back."

"Gross." Marie grimaced, giving her shoulder a playful nudge. At least that meant one less potential reason to stop cuddling with her own girlfriend.

"What? It's not like we wouldn't be doing the same if you were feeling a bit better," Faye teased. Marie made a point of pouting at that remark, but she knew she couldn't dispute it. Heck, the only thing stopping her from kissing Faye right now was the knowledge that moving her head to do so would make it impossible to get back into the perfect comfort spot she had settled into. She had no choice but to concede, taking Faye's free hand in her own and lacing their fingers together.

The two lay there for a long while, disturbed only by the barely-audible sound of fictional couples getting into melodramatic arguments on the television screen. Occasionally Faye would turn her attention to the show when (Marie presumed) things started to get interesting, and the tiny little laughs that escaped her at the far-too-corny jokes only made Marie want to kiss her even more. The urge to fall back to sleep filled her again but this time she fought it, not wanting to miss out on the feeling of being with someone who she loved so dearly.

At last Marie's need for hydration overpowered the desire to cuddle and she slowly sat up, planting her palms against the bedsheet to stay steady. As she stretched and stood up to walk to the mini-fridge Faye stood up as well, joining her and wrapping both arms around her belly for a gentle hug from behind. "I love you, Marie."

"I love you too, Faye," Marie responded with a tired smile. "Thank you for taking care of me. You're the most wonderful girlfriend a squid could ask for."

"Right back at you." Faye leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to the back of Marie's neck, drawing one last purr from her before Faye let go of her with a giggle. "Now that you're up and moving, your wonderful girlfriend is gonna go run a bath. Both of us could stand to clean up and cool off."

Marie nodded. "You wanna go first or should I?" she asked absentmindedly, digging past all the snacks she'd bought to find the chilled water bottles at the back of the fridge.

"Either or," Faye answered as she ducked into the bathroom, and Marie thought she heard a quieter 'Both works too' tucked in under the sound of the bath's faucet starting up. She smiled, closing the fridge and returning to sit on the edge of the bed to take a long sip of water. Only one thought sat in her mind:

I'm so glad she's in my life.

#splatoon #marie #callie #agent 3 #mari3 #outside ocs #tidal writing #the t rating is just to be cautious due to one offhanded line of dialogue #...i feel like i had more to say in the tags but i forgot it in the process of getting things formatted #oh well

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paenling · 3 years

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no ones saying you cant enjoy daniil? people like him as a character but mostly Because he’s an asshole and he’s interesting. the racism and themes of colonization in patho are so blatant

nobody said “by order of Law you are forbidden from enjoying daniil dankovsky in any capacity”, but they did say “if you like daniil dankovsky you are abnormal, problematic, and you should be ashamed of yourself”, so i’d call that an implicit discouragement at the least. not very kind.

regardless, he is a very interesting asshole and we love to make fun of him! but i do not plan to stop seeing his character in an empathetic light when appropriate to do so. we’re all terribly human.

regarding “the racism and themes of colonization in patho”, we’ve gotta have a sit-down for this one because it’s long and difficult. tl;dr here.

i’ve written myself all back and forth and in every direction trying to properly pin down the way i feel about this in a way that is both logically coherent and emotionally honest, but it’s not really working. i debated even responding at all, but i do feel like there are some things worth saying so i’m just going to write a bunch of words, pick a god, and pray it makes some modicum of sense.

the short version: pathologic 2 is a flawed masterwork which i love deeply, but its attempts to be esoteric and challenging have in some ways backfired when it comes to topical discussions such as those surrounding race, which the first game didn’t give its due diligence, and the second game attempted with incomplete success despite its best efforts.

the issue is that when you have a game that is so niche and has these “elevated themes” and draws from all this kind of academic highbrow source material -- the fandom is small, but the fandom consists of people who want to analyze, pathologize, and dissect things as much as possible. so let’s do that.

first: what exactly is racist or colonialist in pathologic? i’m legitimately asking. people at home: by what mechanism does pathologic-the-game inflict racist harm on real people? the fact that the Kin are aesthetically and linguistically inspired by the real-world Buryat people (& adjacent groups) is a potential red flag, but as far as i can tell there’s never any value judgement made about either the fictionalized Kin or the real-world Buryat. the fictional culture is esoteric to the player -- intended to be that way, in fact -- but that’s not an inherently bad thing. it’s a closed practice and they’re minding their business.

does it run the risk of being insensitive with sufficiently aggressive readings? absolutely, but i don’t think that’s racist by itself. they’re just portrayed as a society of human beings (and some magical ones, if you like) that has flaws and incongruences just as the Town does. it’s not idealizing or infantilizing these people, but by no means does it go out of its way to villainize them either. there is no malice in this depiction of the Kin.

is it the fact that characters within both pathologic 1 & 2 are racist? that the player can choose to say racist things when inhabiting those characters? no, because pathologic-the-game doesn’t endorse those things. they’re throwaway characterization lines for assholes. acknowledging that racism exists does not make a media racist. see more here.

however, i find it’s very important to take a moment and divorce the racial discussions in a game like pathologic 2 from the very specific experiences of irl western (particularly american) racism. it’s understandable for such a large chunk of the english-speaking audience to read it that way; it makes sense, but that doesn’t mean it’s correct. although it acknowledges the relevant history to some extent, on account of being set in 1915, pathologic 2 is not intended to be a commentary about race, and especially not current events, and especially especially not current events in america. it’s therefore unfair, in my opinion, to attempt to diagnose it with any concrete ideology or apply its messages to an american racial paradigm.

it definitely still deals with race, but it always, to me, seemed to come back around the exploitation of race as an ultimately arbitrary division of human beings, and the story always strove to be about human beings far more than it was ever about race. does it approach this topic perfectly? no, but it’s clearly making an effort. should we be aware of where it fails to do right by the topic? yes, definitely, but we should also be charitable in our interpretations of what the writers were actually aiming for, rather than reactionarily deeming them unacceptable and leaving it at that. do we really think the writers for pathologic 2 sat down and said “we’re going to go out of our way to be horrible racists today”? i don’t.

IPL’s writing team is a talented lot, and dybowski as lead writer has the kinds of big ideas that elevate a game to a work of art, particularly because he’s not afraid to get personal. on that front, some discussion is inescapable as pathologic 2 deals in a lot of racial and cultural strife, because it’s clearly something near to the his heart, but as i understand it was never really meant to be a narrative “about” race, at least not exclusively so, and especially not in the same sense as the issue is understood by the average American gamer. society isn't a monolith and the contexts are gonna change massively between different cultures who have had, historically, much different relationships with these concepts.

these themes are “so blatant” in pathologic 2 because clearly, on some level, IPL wanted to start a discussion. I think it’s obvious that they wanted to make the audience uncomfortable with the choices they were faced with and the characters they had to inhabit -- invoke a little ostranenie, as it were, and force an emotional breaking point. in the end the game started a conversation and i think that’s something that was done in earnest, despite its moments of obvious clumsiness.

regarding colonialism, this is another thing that the game is just Not About. we see the effects and consequences of colonialism demonstrated in the world of pathologic, and it’s something we’re certainly asked to think about from time to time, but the actual plot/narrative of the game is not about overcoming or confronting explicitly colonialist constructs, etc. i personally regard this as a bit of a missed opportunity, but it’s just not what IPL was going for.

instead they have a huge focus, as discussed somewhat in response to this ask, on the broader idea of powerful people trying to create a “utopia” at the mortal cost of those they disempower, which is almost always topical as far as i’m concerned, and also very Russian.

i think there was some interview where it was said that the second game was much more about “a mechanism that transforms human nature” than the costs of utopia, but it’s still a persistent enough theme to be worth talking about both as an abstraction of colonialism as well as in its more-likely intended context through the lens of wealth inequality, environmental destruction & government corruption as universal human issues faced by the marginalized classes. i think both are important and intelligent readings of the text, and both are worth discussion.

both endings of pathologic 2 involve sacrifice in the name of an “ideal world” where it’s impossible to ever be fully satisfied. in the Diurnal Ending, Artemy is tormented over the fate of the Kin and the euthanasia of his dying god and all her miracles, but he needs to have faith that the children he’s protected will grow up better than their parents and create a world where he and his culture will be immortalized in love. in the Nocturnal Ending, he’s horrified because in preserving the miracle-bound legacy of his people as a collective, he’s un-personed himself to the individuals he loves, but he needs to have faith that the uniqueness and magic of the resurrected Earth was precious enough to be worth that sacrifice. neither ending is fair. it’s not fair that he can’t have both, but that’s the idea. because that “utopia” everyone’s been chasing is an idol that distracts from the important work of being a human being and doing your best in a flawed world.

because pathologic’s themes as a series are so very “Russian turn-of-the-century” and draw a ton of stylistic and topical inspiration from the theatre and literature of that era, i don’t doubt that it’s also inherited some of its inspirational literature’s missteps. however, because the game’s intertextuality is so incredibly dense it’s difficult to construct a super cohesive picture of its actual messaging. a lot of its references and themes will absolutely go over your head if you enter unprepared -- this was true for me, and it ended up taking several passes and a bunch of research to even begin appreciating the breadth of its influences.

(i’d argue this is ultimately a good thing; i would never have gone and picked up Camus or Strugatsky, or even known who Antonin Artaud was at all if i hadn’t gone in with pathologic! my understanding is still woefully incomplete and it’s probably going to take me a lot more effort to get properly fluent in the ideology of the story, but that’s the joy of it, i think. :) i’m very lucky to be able to pursue it in this way.)

anyway yes, pathologic 2 is definitely very flawed in a lot of places, particularly when it tries to tackle race, but i’m happy to see it for better and for worse. the game attempts to discuss several adjacent issues and stumbles as it does so, but insinuating it to be in some way “pro-racist” or “pro-colonialist” or whatever else feels kind of disingenuous to me. they’re clearly trying, however imperfectly, to do something intriguing and meaningful and empathetic with their story.

even all this will probably amount to a very disjointed and incomplete explanation of how pathologic & its messaging makes me feel, but what i want -- as a broader approach, not just for pathologic -- is for people to be willing to interpret things charitably.

sometimes things are made just to be cruel, and those things should be condemned, but not everything is like that. it’s not only possible but necessary to be able to acknowledge flaws or mistakes and still be kind. persecuting something straight away removes any opportunity to examine it and learn from it, and pathologic happens to be ripe with learning experiences.

it’s all about being okay with ugliness, working through difficult nuances with grace, and the strength of the human spirit, and it’s a story about love first and foremost, and i guess we sort of need that right now. it gave me some of its love, so i’m giving it some of my patience.

#meta #discourse #long post #ipl #writing #Anonymous #slight edit for colonialism #untitled plague game #pathologic

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